Sarah Marchand

Launched in 2016, alma matters productions began with a single goal: To amplify underrepresented stories through the power of theatre. Fast forward five years later, and we have now supported thirteen new works that focus on intersectional feminism, cultural identity, and mental health. We proudly label ourselves as a grassroots company, which has built a community of artists eager to be the future voices of Canada’s performing arts industry. Together, we have showcased award-winning plays, built networks, and provided paid training opportunities for emerging talent.
To support Fly Away Home, our inaugural 2022 season, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-alma-matters-productions-first-season

SELECT CREDITS: Winter of ’88, co-producer (Nowadays Theatre, NNNNN); Love at 752, producer (ft. on CBC); Swim Team, producer (Nowadays Theatre, NNNN); Drink of Choice, Producer (Toronto Fringe 2019 Patron’s Pick), Cooking for Grief, Producer (Vancouver Fringe Festival)

The Artistic Director, Sarah Marchand, is secretly quite shy, despite friendly exteriors. As she continues to learn, Sarah is passionate about making indie theatre producing more accessible: if someone as bad with numbers like her can become a producer, you can too.

www.sarahmarchand.com
Twitter: @sarahamarchand
Instagram: @sarahamarchand

www.almamattersproductions.com
Twitter: @almattersprod
Instagram: @almattersprod

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Transcript

Welcome to stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host of this podcast. This is Episode 318.

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You can find Stageworthy on Twitter and Instagram at StageworthyPod and you can find the website with the archive of all 318 episodes at stageworthypodcast.com. And if you want to find me you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Phil Rickaby. And as I mentioned, my website is philrickaby.com. My guest this week is actor and producer Sarah Marchand. She is also the Artistic Director of Alma Mater’s Productions who launched their first full season this year.

Sarah is one of those powerhouse people who just gets shit done and definitely someone that you should know. As an actor producer Sarah has gotten a lot of questions about producing theatre and so we’re answering questions in this episode. There’s a lot here for anyone interested in getting started in producing but also a look behind the curtain for those who might want to see a little bit about how the salad gets made.

The last time we talked producing was a new thing for you. Yeah. You’ve been producing for a little while now.

Yeah. How do you feel about being a producer? What a great question. It’s funny the more I do it the less I know about it.

What is that Socrates quote? The more I know the less I know. It’s funny when I started I think there’s this kind of beginner ignorance. You just think oh I’ve done this once and it was successful so I know exactly what I’m doing and then you realize the nuances that come with every different project that you produce.

The different personalities that come into play and there’s so much to learn about producing. So on the one hand I feel more confident just because I’ve certainly built up my resume since we last spoke but at the same time I’ve realized there’s so much more to learn and it’s it’s exciting actually rather than feeling intimidated by that. I’m excited to learn more.

I think that’s kind of a really healthy way to look at it though. To always be learning rather than think that you now know it all or you know enough because feeling like you still have something to learn every day is a way to both keep yourself interested but also keep you a person without getting too insufferable. Totally.

I think it stems from insecurity when you think you know everything because if someone offers you a suggestion or if you are in fact wrong with something you aren’t confident enough in your role to say I made a mistake and so you know I’ve done this before I know what I’m doing well surprise you might not actually know what you’re doing whereas now I have done it enough where I can own up to my mistakes or at least take constructive feedback a little better now so I can say thank you for that suggestion I want to work on that to be better for my next project you know I find something similar about I find something similar about writing in that hmm I every time I sit down to write a new play or something it’s different there’s no one way that I that I have ever approached it anytime I try to repeat what I did the last time it doesn’t work so it’s like you just have to I have to stay open to what does this play want oh such a good question and you know that’s that’s so great because I think the biggest misconception that artists have with producers or producing is that it’s not creative it is so creative producing it’s just a different type of art form that a lot of actors specifically aren’t used to and so there isn’t just a tried and true approach I found some things that have worked for me for each project but there is always something new that I learned there’s always something different ways we can tackle certain challenges and it’s true I should start asking that what does this project need how can I lift this project yeah it’s great it’s such a it’s such a an important question because no project needs it needs the exact same as the last one and again that’s that’s like for me sometimes I have to go through when I’m creating something like three or four different ways of writing right before I figure it out probably I should plan better maybe because that doesn’t work so when you’re producing you have to like have sort of an idea so you can ask the question of like yeah does this play mean need but writing is a little bit more haphazard for me sure I mean yeah you can only plan so much but there is I’ve learned now to just accept it doesn’t matter how much I plan there’s always like shit’s gonna hit the fan in your show time always you know it’s funny because the this time of of the pandemic has really sort of reinforced the fact that that as theatre creators and producers and everybody else we all have to be ready to change hmm we don’t know what’s coming exactly I think that’s something we’ve all kind of grown accustomed to I mean the last time we spoke we were trying to get a project off the ground since before COVID it was even a thing and we just had to keep readapting and changing so I am grateful now because I can have a bit more of a flexible attitude before I would get kind of stuck like well this is what we planned this was the contract this was what we wanted to do I can’t handle I can’t handle obstacles whereas now I’m like well okay how do we reshift and refocus I think that’s like that’s the skill that I think a lot of times in the theatre world we kind of missed up until now because we had no choice now but it wasn’t that many years ago where some people would just the answer to the question was well this is the way we do it yes yeah that’s not a good answer which is also weird because theatre is all theatre should be about bending the rules so why are we so why were we so stuck in these rigid ways of doing theatre let’s be more open-minded and I think we are now so that’s encouraging and it’s exciting actually I really like to hope so but I I do feel like there are some people who are like oh thank goodness this we’re opening theaters again we can stop trying new things and it feels like like like some people just can’t wait to go back to the way it was and we can forget all of this stuff we’ve learned right I feel bad for those people yeah yeah but it’s true you’re right not everyone has that same kind of open-mindedness but you know at least for me and the people I’ve kept in touch with we’re excited about these new opportunities and these new ideas and there’s always gonna be that regardless there’s always gonna be the more conservative theatre practitioners and sure they hold a certain place in the community and then there’s people who are more forward-thinking mm-hmm yes absolutely absolutely um a couple of things I wanted to ask you about first off I know that the name of your production company alma mater’s alma mater’s productions is really important to you could you tell me about where the name comes from and tell me a little bit about the origin story of the company yeah um so I moved to Toronto in 2014 for my master’s degree which was fun but was not very useful in obtaining employment but that’s another story and one thing I remember learning in class was our professors always said don’t ever start a theatre company it’ll be financial suicide and it’s just not a good idea there are so many companies don’t do it so I kind of had this mentality drilled into my head okay Sarah will not do a theatre company but the more theatre I was seen and the more work I was doing I thought yes I am an actor and I want to do my own work but I want to work with people too and it just felt too felt too loose it felt too there wasn’t enough stability when I kept just doing these random projects I thought I need a way to bring people together and have a kind of solidified to do this so at the time that this was happening my grandmother her name was is Alma and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2000 so when she first got the diagnosis doctors told her she had max max five years to live so she would pass away by the year 2005 my grandmother ended up living until 2017 and I truly truly believe that she lived that much longer because of the supportive community that she had she was so well loved by my mom by her husband my grandfather and I think when we take care of people it really helps helps to create a safer more thriving community and so I was so inspired by this I also like the idea that Alma mater translates to nourishing mother it’s the Latin translation translation for that so I was really interested in exploring female works works by women for women so it just seemed to kind of tie together nicely for me and another inspiration was in Portuguese the word soul so it just felt right that my grandmother at this time you know she was in her decline at this point but all of these themes and ideas were coming together and I love that my work as an artist was translating outside of just my creative world and into my daily life and so I thought I want to foster a community that does something similar to the way that my grandmother spent her final days and so I’m all about support and creating a positive environment so that we can all thrive I’m really about process rather than product I think process is everything to a production one of the other things is isn’t Alma mater how people refer to their former school that’s right yeah um another little side note is I realized early on I’m I was dyslexic and so I wasn’t the best in certain subjects you know I was good in drama in English but science and math and all these more technical courses I really really struggled with and because I I just had this this hunger for knowledge even though I did have this learning disability I was so eager to keep learning and so I really applied myself and I had a really great network of people who helped me to learn and it’s because of that I was able to even get a master’s degree you know sometimes it’s easy to say this person has dyslexia like there’s no way she can pursue academic studies and I was able to do that because I was passionate about it and people were able to believe in me and support me so that’s also tied into it can I ask were you were you diagnosed early with dyslexia yeah um my was diagnosed much later in her adult years and she was noticing patterns with both myself and my younger brother and I was really struggling with school so she was like mmm I think you might have what I have and sure enough when I got tested they were like oh yeah those kids super dyslexic so yeah yeah yeah I was I was it would took me a long time they didn’t give me a name I only recently found out it has a name dyscalculia where I I’m bad at math but that’s because numbers don’t make sense to me and the way that numbers interact with each other don’t don’t work with me but I it took a long time for a diagnosis of that I think I was I might have been 11 but even then it was like oh well I guess we just put him in the same math classes and let him struggle that would seem to be the attitude at a time it was it was not a happy time until they finally said you can use a calculator and I said awesome it’s hard it feels it can feel so isolating when you you can especially when you’re you’re in that adolescent period and you can just you can tell there’s something different you know you’re not processing information the way you feel like your peers are and it is so easy to believe well maybe there’s something wrong with me maybe I am stupid and it I know I could have so easily fallen down that path if I didn’t have the support I did and yeah so that’s why again I so believe in a in a fostering supportive community because everyone is smart everyone is creative everyone is an artist they just need to be given that opportunity and an environment where they can thrive rather than things that might be more of a difficulty for them mm-hmm I used to have classmates that were told to help me with math I frustrated one so much that she broke a pencil oh my god she snapped the pencil I and and and it was like it was only after the diagnosis I was like I’m not math stupid it’s just I don’t understand the numbers they don’t work for me but when when a classmate gets so frustrated that you’re not getting something that they break something like that it was really quite a little bit traumatizing in the moment yeah it’s good for your self-esteem right like for me it was the math thing that was like the stumbling block I was fine in so many other other classes but it was like math actually comes into a lot of surprisingly a lot of things involve math oh my god yeah don’t get me started especially with producing for sure I was about to ask what’s your what’s your do you have any tips and tricks for doing things like creating a budget and tracking a budget when you are bad at math yeah that’s a great question I mean I think that’s also a big reason why a lot of artists tend to fear the idea of producing because numbers are can be tricky um I’m I’ve noticed with some research there’s there’s a lot of Excel spreadsheets that just do the calculations for you which is awesome and I’ve also just realized like I can just get an outside eye when I’m struggling to there is so much more to producing than just numbers like of course numbers are important but for me I I just try to you know simplify things as best as I can I don’t need to calculate everything in my head I can use a program that calculates it for me and then I just get someone who is good at math just to look it over just to make sure my numbers are correct and there’s nothing wrong with that I also like to use pretty colors like yeah I don’t know and I hear Excel spreadsheets I just think of the most daunting boring technical spreadsheets and early on I realized like this doesn’t have to be this way so I make my fonts and fonts that I find aesthetically pleasing I use nice colors and it just makes the whole process less intimidating for me why make it something that’s boring and just a grid why not add fonts you like in colors that just makes totally you’re gonna spend enough time staring at the thing anyway yeah I think we’ve been programmed to believe that things that are fun can’t mean work right so oh well numbers that’s a big serious important thing so it must be boring but if as long as the information is being acquired and understood like who cares how how it looks yeah now you mentioned how afraid a lot of performers are about producing yeah I’m curious could you for those that that you know they don’t haven’t really looked into it because they’re too afraid of what producing might be what what how do you describe producing and and and the quote-unquote duties of a producer I have this joke answer I always say the producer is the one who does all the stuff nobody wants to do but are the tasks that are necessary to make the production happen but I’ve learned now there are some fun things involved with producing I honestly think more than numbers and budgeting the biggest thing a producer can do is just be good at communication it is so vital even if you feel like you’re just repeating things or if it’s being I don’t know too clear you can never be too clear and it’s just a matter of making sure everyone’s in the loop everyone knows what’s going on and making sure you have language that is accessible sometimes people might not know the terminology that you’re using or they might not be quite as up-to-date or as involved with the project as you are so it’s really just about communication and making sure everyone’s kind of up-to-date with everything and being fun to work with like having a good time being a people person is is is helpful for sure anytime you get you have to deal with people that can sure that gets your help is there aside from the the math part is there a part of producing that you don’t enjoy so much fundraising I hate I think I think most people would agree with that yeah it’s very humbling the experience just feel like yeah I don’t know if you’ve ever done like door-to-door sort of things I have this traumatic memory of being in Girl Guides and having to sell cookies and just my mom I never had to do that but I never had to do that but as an introvert it just yeah terrifies me it’s bad enough being in yeah trying to promote a show in a fringe line oh my god I’m getting anxiety just hearing that yeah yeah it’s it’s terrifying and you know and I should clarify I said you need to be a people person and I I’m totally an introvert myself too and when I say people person it’s not that person who’s who can yell the loudest in the fringe line up who’s you know always there in the biggest energy in the room it’s just being accommodating to different personalities and being very perceptive and aware to different energies that you’re working with that’s that’s what I mean by people person I think a lot of people have have strange ideas about what people person means yeah I think so because it is an introvert I can enjoy people one-on-one that can make me a people person and I can enjoy being in front of an audience but you know I can not enjoy networking events or going to parties oh my god no literally my nightmare as far as I mean whenever we’re producing there’s a lot of things that sort of fall to the producers responsibility like fundraising and we’ll get into fundraising a little bit later on publicity might not be something the producer does but they sort of have to make sure that word gets out about a show and so it’s upset the producer to engage a publicity person PR person media or contact that sort of thing what have you learned about that process a lot I mean unfortunately more often than not with indie theatre you just don’t have the budget to hire a PR person if you do absolutely it’s just one task that you can alleviate off your shoulders but unfortunately more often than not you’re gonna be doing some PR if you’re producing a show so two things I’ve learned about that is sharing and resharing Instagram stories can only go so far you know it doesn’t just because you’re you’re constantly resharing things in your stories doesn’t necessarily mean that the word is getting out you have to kind of think about it with how you yourself consume social media like as much as I’d want to believe every time I post something people are looking at it and thinking I’m going to engage with this and pause and read the entire description that’s that’s not how we spend our time on Instagram right it’s it’s scroll scroll scroll so for me it is imperative to connect with people on a one-on-one basis now I understand that can be very exhausting but I feel like you kind of have to look at it it’s it’s more productive I would rather privately message ten people and really take my time crafting you know a personalized message and almost guaranteeing that they will come versus just constantly spamming people online mm-hmm yeah and it goes the same with fundraising when you take the time to actually reach out to people more often than not they will support you in some kind of way and again I think about how I want to receive that if someone’s constantly on their story sharing stuff I kind of tune out but if someone takes the time to say how am I doing and they’ve actually done some research to know what work I’m up to and they’re like hey great show then yeah I totally want to support so that’s huge I had another one and now I’ve forgotten what that’s okay for me like the whole thing with with Instagram stories is and it you know people already have to be following you to see it right totally can reshare it but again like for your immediate use people have to be following you the algorithm is not always friendly to everyone and so when you’re putting stuff out there you’re you’re combating essentially a robot that will only wants to show other people stuff that other people have already liked mm-hmm yes totally oh I did remember what my other point was I also make it a rule in my letter of agreements it’s always good to have some kind of letter of agreement with every show you’re doing but I always ask everyone involved to agree to at least you know doing doing their part with social media content if it is an indie project more often than not we’re probably not getting paid a lot and so it’s not entirely the producers responsibility for PR like we want everyone to shine right and sure an actor might think it’s not their job to help out with PR but it helps them to to have thumbs and seats right so I really try to make it transparent from the get go with the team if we’ve got an online meeting or a group email just to say hey everyone like help me help you and let’s all work on word-of-mouth and publicity together just to help alleviate that burden off our backs a bit well also I mean as a as a performer in an indie show like you’re only gonna get paid if people come to this show so it does it it is in your best interest to help out in that way I couldn’t agree more and yet I am always surprised with every project I do there’s always somebody who’s like well I don’t really do that sort of thing don’t you want people to come like I can’t make up an audience like it comes through work you gotta help spread the word like do they do they not have have social media or they just don’t post about the shows they’re doing which seems counterproductive yeah they don’t you know this is the odd exception you know most people are really great but I’ll sometimes get that one person will say like I don’t really do the social media thing or I don’t really share stuff on my platform okay I often wonder what like in if you’re if you have the social media but you don’t share stuff especially about projects that you’re working on what is the purpose of having social media at that yeah like yeah we are trying to build every one of us who is a performer whether we’re a play however we whatever we do in the arts we want to build some kind of following and we can’t do that if we don’t talk about the work we’re doing yes and I get it not everyone loves social media the way that some other artists do I really do get that it can be exhausting and not be the best for your mental health if you get too hooked on it I really do respect that I think the struggle I have more is just when people don’t want to bother with it or they just yeah they’d have a they don’t have the right attitude that’s helping everyone else that’s that’s the thing that bothers me I think that what would bother me is if I were trying to get somebody to to you know talk about the show on their platform and they don’t want to do it but they’re still posting their daily tick tocks and their daily yeah other like their vlog or whatever like if you’re posting on the regular yeah you can post about the show too totally totally it just and I can’t tell you because even though I know whenever I make a social media post the engagement might do well or it might not I I try to put time and effort into it and it really means a lot when I see people sharing content that I’ve worked hard on to help you know help make them shine so yeah just helps the whole team thrive when we’re all pitching in yeah absolutely absolutely can help I think I think one of the things that I’ve done when I’ve tried to do shows I mean if I do a solo show it’s a lot easier but if I do other shows if I’m creating artwork that I want to share on social media I try to make sure that each person at least has one thing that they’re in yes and it features them then they’re more likely to share it and I think that’s a really good thing to do if you if you’re creating the the post yourself for people to share like make sure that everybody has a spot where they shine absolutely I love doing artist spotlights and it’s also you know it’s an easy way for you as the PR person to just create content without having to think so creatively like no just feature everyone on your team you know getting paid a lot we might as well try to make ourselves feel like the superstars we are and just have a little artist spotlight moment it’s nice yeah yeah now in advance of this you asked a few people because you know people once you start producing suddenly people think that you’re some kind of wizard and they want to know they want to climb the mountain and talk to the guru they want to they want to visit the wizard they want to get some answers and so you asked people some questions about the kind of things that they might want to know about producing mm-hmm so I’m gonna ask you some of those questions and you can answer we can discuss let’s do it I’m ready one of the first questions is how do you go about determining appropriate ticket prices and I think before we get into the answer I think that is a super important question because sometimes I’ve encountered people who worry that that oh if we price it you know I want to make sure that everybody can come and see it so let’s make sure that we don’t we don’t charge more than $5 or something ridiculous like that yeah and you can price yourself out of consideration because your price is too low yes you can overcharge but you can also weigh under charge and if you’re charging too little people will kind of subconsciously feel like well if that’s how much they’re charging it can’t be that good that I think is one of the hardest lessons especially when you’re starting out because it is so easy to fall into that imposter syndrome spiral and say well my arts not worth that much or I don’t know what I’m doing so I don’t want to make people pay but my gosh with the economy now a night out with food and drinks it costs like three times the price of a theatre ticket might but yes that’s that’s so important rule of thumb is usually people undervalue their ticket prices you can always go for a few dollars more I’m personally a huge fan of tiered ticketing prices I know people have mixed reviews with this but for me that’s been a method I’ve used for a couple of shows now and what I like about it is that I try my best to even have the lowest price not under what I think the show is worth but I am always surprised someone will always get the the highest ticketing tier and that option just I wouldn’t have gotten that that high of a donation if I just didn’t have that option available so that for me has been my preferred method but one thing I really will say is I mean I don’t have you know a wizard solution to the magical numbers but it is so important not to base your your your budget off ticket sales I really try my best to get all of the fundraising beforehand and then the ticket sales is kind of like your tip money or just bonus money what I have found is when I try my best to budget my my production based off ticket sales is that it makes you kind of loopy and it makes your fellow co-producers or maybe other artists kind of loopy too because suddenly it’s not about promoting this project you love it’s we need this many people to come to this many shows otherwise we’re gonna lose money so yeah just try your best if possible to get the funds you need beforehand and then you can enjoy maybe don’t getting giving everyone a little extra on a maroon with the ticket sales but yeah sometimes it can make you loopy can I ask about the tiered system that you’re using one of the questions that I like thinking about tiered is sort of if somebody buys like a higher tier is there an additional experience that they can be given I mean you can do that certainly and I’ve been asked that before but so far for me no it’s just it’s kind of you have to put your ego aside because for me as an emerging lower-class artist you know still struggling to pay rent whatever I forget that there are people who aren’t in the same financial situation that I’m in and who really want to support the arts they really do and so I need to put my own anxieties aside and just say look like this is you’re getting the same same product but if you want to support us and you know our mandate and this is this is an option that you can pay and people will I’ve seen you know the theatre company Eldridge theatre I feel like I just talked about them yesterday and I probably did they have done productions where they do this show and then they they have a second after show that would happen down in the basement of the theatre and and a group of a group of people would would would join and if you bought a certain ticket price you could go but I could also see on the other side of that is that you could do that but then also have a certain number of those tickets of that sort of that that like tickets that after show the second show that were just a draw at the show like before the show this is an additional thing it’s the exact same show they just know it’s a separate show it’s a second show it’s like so you’ve seen the main so now we’re gonna go downstairs and so in their case they would do like we’re doing like like it’s it’s I think that was like card tricks and cons and they would sort of like do this little like 15 minute thing where they would do like some card tricks and show you how people get like it was like that that’s her like con artists and card tricks kind of thing and they would do an extra little thing down there so it’s like an extra experience after the show it’s like certainly people like to feel you know people love little perks when they get it I guess my only hesitation with that is I don’t want people of a certain financial background to feel like because they’re giving more money suddenly they should be entitled to a better experience than people who maybe just can’t afford because maybe $15 might not seem like a lot but for that one person it’s it’s it’s a lot of money for them so yeah I think that’s that’s that would be my only hesitation is I want everyone to feel they can get the same experience and then if people want to support more they certainly can I think that the balancing act of that and it is I definitely like I agree you want everybody in the audience to have the same experience I think to me the trick is that the show like say the extra experience can’t be bigger than this show totally yeah it would have to be something that is a nice to have and it might be fun but if I didn’t have that I would not feel leave feeling like I missed out right right and you know what’s so cool about that is that is such a perfect example of how producing is creative because these are ways you can try and figure out okay well if we’re gonna have a ticketing tiered system what are some other aspects we can we can add to it and then you get to brainstorm and think about these ideas like I love this idea of a basement show like it’s so cool yeah I had an idea for it while I was planning out another show of doing like you know there’s it’s a show about a mall Santa and I had an idea that that after the show for like five dollars more you could get your picture taken with bad Santa that kind of oh my god yeah right is there in terms of the if you were generally is there an like do you have a price in your mind that you feel like is this is if I could only charge one ticket price this is the spot that I would choose yeah I think it depends on the project that you’re doing um if it’s a digital piece I I would be hesitant to go I would do the 15 to 20 dollar range and for live theatre I I think it’s becoming more and more acceptable to do 20 to 25 you know if you asked me this maybe five six years ago I would have said 15 to 20 but 20 is starting to become the base rate and then 25 is what general admission will be and usually you can do like an arts worker but yeah 20 25 for live 15 to 20 for digital yeah I feel like I for me I feel like 20 is that like the sweet spot there for 20 to 25 but like 20 is like that average spot that most people can get to and you can offer like a an arts worker ticket as well for totally on the other side as well yeah here’s a question I have I you know I being in the media I’ve experienced the opposites the sort of the wrong way for this to happen so the second question is how early should you start advertising and I would add on to that just like getting how early should you be getting like reaching out to the media at all um you can do I would say as early as six months just an announcement to say this is the project we’re working on stay tuned for details that can happen six months you don’t want to start with the incessant posting and media outreach by that point from my experience I would say four to six weeks is a pretty good estimate I have sometimes started three weeks in advance and it you can get away with three weeks but that’s pushing it I think four to six is a good number what I will say to that is if your numbers if your ticket sales still aren’t in Chris increasing don’t worry like more often than not they’re always going to jump the week of opening I myself buy tickets always at the last minute and I always get annoyed or stressed out I’m like why is no one buying tickets to my show I’m like Sarah cuz everyone’s like you you just buy it don’t stress you people are seeing your stuff don’t panic post cuz that just looks a little desperate you want to avoid desperation it’s not attractive people don’t particularly like to spend money for desperation I’ve had to learn that the hard way yeah I sometimes will get panicked and I’ll start posting I’m like nobody wants to see that yeah you’re right we all have been there we have all been there is the length of time for advertising different if it’s a digital production I would say yes because there’s only so much you can do with digital advertising and it’s you watch it at home right whereas with theatre you kind of have to it’s a certain time you’ve got to get to the venue there’s a three to four weeks is a pretty good estimate I mean I’ve done I’ve done three digital shows now so I could be off but I found three to four weeks is a pretty good sweet spot adding on for like if anybody is like wondering like when they should reach out to the media I am usually just as an example I’m scheduling my this this podcast usually about six weeks ahead at the very least so I need to be contacted before that noted I think in general like if you’re going to reach out to the media especially if it’s like internet media is one thing like if it’s if it’s a blog or something like that but if it is print or TV they need more lead time to be able to get that stuff in there totally totally and then that gives them more time sometimes you won’t even hear from them until a week before showtime which is great but also yeah you don’t want to wait on it too much sometimes you’ll hear from them they’ll be like hey we want to talk to you about the show tomorrow yeah yeah that’s happened to me too and you just um this is an interesting question because this is like this is of the questions I think this is the question oh gosh how do you market to those outside the theatre community the question yeah so I’m gonna give my answer based off the fact that I’m still learning myself and maybe it could change maybe not but yes this is something I think all of us as aspiring producers want to learn more about something that has helped me is much in the same way with people who donate higher higher ticketing tiers is you kind of have to get out of your own mindset and go through what people who don’t necessarily work in the arts might think or how they might feel towards theatre more often than not people who work a nine-to-five office job they want to have fun they want to go out they want something to do and if you can put your own insecurities aside about what you feel about the show they’re very happy just to go out and so what I’ve started to do is you know I have a couple of friends who aren’t artists and I’ll say hey do your co-workers feel like an outing if so I’ve got a show going on and if you get at least 10 people I can guarantee 25% off your tickets you can do 10 or 15 but that just builds incentive and I think providing a little group discount makes them feel special so it’s like this outing and they saved a few bucks and then you’ve got more bums in seats so I like doing this group discount and honestly it’s really just about knowing that people are hungry to see shows you just need to reach out to them yeah yeah I would say one of the things that we all also need to do is to think like we need to be thinking about what what our potential audience wants to see totally and if we are and I have I have an uncomfortable relationship with the phrase that still gets like tossed around quite a bit which is art for artists because I understand what they think they mean but I like to think about I to me the audience is more important than the artist yes it’s great for the artist to make great art but if if we don’t aren’t considering the audience then why are we even doing it absolutely and also you don’t know these people’s stories sure they might work an office job but maybe they have a maybe they did drama in high school and you know due to life circumstances had to take a different direction but I had one time someone who works in tech like tech of all things I would assume like mistakenly like they’re not interested in seeing theatre when I actually found out they were like a musician on the side and it’s just neat to know that not to box people because people want to see art they crave it yeah another shout out to to Eldridge theatre because I think it’s important that people know that it is possible to do Eldridge theatre sells out almost every show they do and and the majority of their audience are not theatre people amazing and that is something that they have cultivated over time through through mailing lists and and Facebook groups and things like that that they’ve managed to to build a relationship with their audience that it’s something you can only build over time but it is something that it speaks to keeping the communication with your potential audience open even when there is not a show going on absolutely absolutely that’s good for them that’s awesome here’s another question and I’m not I think we might have to we might have to suss out what this question means but it’s what are your best tips for saving money on shows yeah I will okay I saving money well what I will say is please try your best to avoid cutting artists pay down as a way to save money if possible my goodness we probably probably make so little already and one of my biggest mandates is actors are not props and you don’t know why there’s this stereotype that everyone else can get paid but actors are doing it as a volunteer position yeah listen as an actor myself I know we love acting of course but they should still be paid for their work so don’t try to save money on that please I feel like this answer is too basic but thrifting and posting online just asking for things I love getting secondhand stuff and you would not believe the crazy shit that people own when you just ask for it I’m part of one of these um buy nothing groups here in Vancouver and it’s essentially it’s kind of like buns but the idea is that you gift things without expecting anything in return and so you just write a post and you start it with ask does anyone have this and the show I’m currently working on we’ve been able to pretty much source all of our set materials through this buy nothing group so our set cost virtually nothing which is astonishing and it’s nice it’s it’s all secondhand it’s economical and environmentally friendly yeah I think one of the things like just for me when I’ve when I’ve done production on stuff is is it’s always important to remember that in theatre the audience is more likely to be able to suspend their disbelief yes yes Brad Fraser I was talking to him and he was like you can like say that suddenly you’re underwater change the lights and everybody waved their arms slowly the audience will buy that you’re underwater without anything else yes I did a show in which we had like a chase across the top of a of a train mm-hmm and the way that we did we had a rectangle of light and that was the the the top of the train and we just sort of like pretended to run and we would jump in unison and occasionally somebody would run by with the branch and it was super effective actually that you know so occasionally somebody get hit with a branch and in the end the villain got hit with a branch and carried away and the audience applauded and it was like all we did was a light and somebody running by with a with a branch Wow Wow that’s incredible um I recently saw at the push festival as you like it Cliff Cardinals production I don’t know if you caught it when it was that crows I did not get the chance to know yeah I don’t want to give too much no way but the set is minimal at best and I was blown away it’s one of the best shows I have seen in a very long time so yes suspension of disbelief 100% yeah and I think it’s important that we do remember that because I think a lot of times if we see productions on TV we see the the big elaborate and expensive set that they’ve built for this show but in a lot of cases you don’t need that you know no if you’re gonna try to save money don’t do it on people do it on set pieces yeah 100% I’m reminded of the the early productions of Billy Bishop goes to war which was you know just a guy sitting in a chair with a toy plane and when if when it later on on Broadway he was actually like climbing into a life-size plane on the stage and it’s like it was more effective everybody I heard when it was a guy in a chair with a toy plane Wow Wow the imagination is a wonderful thing like it really is yeah and the final question is one that I know you’re not gonna like because we’ve talked about we’ve talked about how this is like your least favourite thing but it’s the question is what are some good ways to fundraise yeah let’s get into it I don’t know if there’s like a surefire way to fundraise it really really depends on the project that you’re doing but I can rapid-fire a few things that have worked for me just if anyone’s listening gets inspired for me crowdfunding time and time again has always been my main method it is really a time to a specify the project that you’re doing because you’re writing about it you’re pitching it but also reach out to the community let them know what you’re up to so I am a huge fan of crowdfunding another one is silent auctions I recently just did one with 32 auctions and it can all be online it doesn’t have to be in person what I like about silent auctions is that you can bid on things that people might actually be interested in and still make some money ad space in your programs you know just loves you can charge by how large you want the image to be and email reach out to restaurants or local businesses that’s a great way to make a few extra bucks and another one I have to give a shout out to a friend of mine Victoria Laberge she suggested this one to me and it blew me away um twitch I don’t know a lot about twitch but she recently did a fundraiser it was a 24-hour fundraiser where they got a DJ to play for 24 hours straight and they managed to raise $8,000 for their organization so I have a cousin who’s a DJ and in back in December we did the same thing we didn’t quite reach a grand but we definitely did really well with that so if you know any DJs on twitch like give that a shot because I was shocked how much money we made um I have a question about crowdfunding mm-hmm and I and and it’s because I think some people when they think about crowdfunding they they essentially think if I put it on crowdfunding people will buy it people will will will like give me the money yeah but it it takes a little bit more than that I know that when I fund things and not just theatre things when I fund when I like want something that’s crowdfunded yes I might if it is for the product I want that product right so if I’m backing a film give me a copy of the film theatre is not like that and so I need perks that I want and that that can often be the sticking point like what can we give as perks have you found anything in your crowdfunding that has really worked for you as far as like the the perks go yeah and I’m glad you brought that up because my god crowdfunding is a whole other podcast in itself and also I should preface by saying if you do need to crowdfund to it months in advance like too many people I know do it around a month’s before show time and they realize oh shit we need all of this extra money we don’t have it let’s do a crowdfunding campaign get that in as soon as possible I’m talking months months months in advance we’re not even gonna get the money fast enough if you do it yeah that’s totally totally um in terms of perks again you kind of have to look at it from what do I actually want like don’t don’t just throw together perks because you think you need to add something something really cool that I’m I recently did for a campaign is for a certain donation people get their name featured on the set it’s like a kind of where’s Waldo thing and so if they either see the show they can kind of look for their name on it or if they don’t we’ll send them a photo and just say here’s your name on the set people seem to be really excited about that other perks I would say people always like digital signed copies of the script or printed but I prefer digital it’s more paper friendly and I’m trying to think of what we offered oh yeah when this campaign I did it with a few other people so my co-producers who helped launch this most recent campaign they’re also acting coaches so they said hey if you donate a certain tier you get a free hour-long coaching session so for a lot of actors that’s really helpful look into your skill sets what other skills can you provide that are really helpful to people I myself am not as big of a fan of like physical items like I don’t really want you to like hand make me can make me something unless you’re like an actual artist like I don’t want that but if you have a skill set to offer me like yeah I would love love love to donate to get that yeah I think it’s so important that people do consider what they are offering for perks because like I said like for a perk I want I will spend $50 like not like I’m not gonna just oh you know sure I want back this project will give you $5 like if I my base is if the if the perk is good I’m $50 I’m in yeah and if you offer good perks that people are wanting to pay for you can make like how much better is it for you to get on average $50 from people than it is to get five absolutely yeah but people have to avoid like I’ve seen this so many times for $10 we will thank you on the internet $15 we will thank you on our in our program like just like oh my god like these are not perks these are things you should do anyway yes yeah I could not agree with you more yeah we be creative and make it things that you’re excited about that you think other people are excited about like if you work at a restaurant and you have a good relationship with them try and see if you can get gift cards or say hey we’ve got two of these perks available $50 off this like I don’t know liquor store or whatever make them enticing totally yeah absolutely so that is the questions but I do want to make sure that we have a second to talk about fly away home tell me about because I know that you have you currently have a GoFundMe going for that but I want I want to know about about about fly away home fly away home is our first ever Cedars season Alma Matters production started in 2016 and I think I mentioned this on the last podcast but I tend to just do things and then realize afterwards how much work is involved but last year I thought I’ve never done a season and there’s always like little things I want to do and I just want to I want to make art so let’s try a season and so I found three projects that I was really passionate about and I really like the title fly away home a because the saying goes ladybug ladybug fly away home and our logo is a ladybug but I think for me having moved across the country and just having this time with the pandemic I’ve been really asking myself where is home and I think these three pieces really try and investigate that question where is home for you and has it changed since kovat started so not all of these pieces have answers but they explore it and that’s something I’m really I’m really excited about I was muted sometimes I think that that you know exploration and questions are often so much more interesting than the answers because does anyone have them I don’t know no I think I think if the pandemic has taught us anything nobody has any answers yeah they’re really interesting people have good questions exactly Sarah thank you so much I’ve really enjoyed this has been super super fun and informative thank you so much my pleasure